New ship coming in?

Wednesday

At 1,047 feet long and 252 feet wide, the USS Kitty Hawk is a huge ship.

And bringing the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to Wilmington to moor permanently next to the Battleship North Carolina as a tourist attraction would be a huge – not to mention expensive – undertaking.

But a small group of influential people met for the first time this week in a boardroom at a downtown Wilmington bank to discuss the huge possibility. Many of them left the informal gathering believing it was a great idea but wondering whether potential obstacles, of which there are many, could be overcome.

“It’s all pie in the sky at this point,” said retired U.S. Navy Capt. Dave Scheu, director of the Battleship North Carolina and one of 10 people at the meeting.

The group isn’t calling itself a committee, and Monday’s discussion was very preliminary. But many at the meeting came away optimistic – at least publicly.

“I did not hear anybody say, ‘This is stupid, this is bad,’ ” said Wilmington banker Rick Willetts, who hosted the meeting at downtown’s Cooperative Bank, where he is president and chief executive officer.

“This is nothing other than an interesting concept that warrants further exploration,” he said.

The Star-News learned of the meeting through a public e-mail sent to Mayor Spence Broadhurst. The newspaper wasn’t permitted to attend, but some who did agreed to speak about it afterward.

“Obviously, the mere discussion of it is exciting,” Broadhurst said.He added that there must have been questions and concerns before the Battleship North Carolina came down the Cape Fear River in 1961, the same year the Kitty Hawk was put into service. Since then, the mayor said, the battleship has attracted countless tourists to the Port City and formed part of the city’s identity. He lauded the foresight of those who worked to bring it here.

“We certainly need to investigate any similar opportunity that may be out there,” Broadhurst said.

But optimism about the potential of a second large military ship in Wilmington is tempered by the reality that such a huge endeavor carries with it huge logistical, financial and operational questions.

“This is going to take a few years of planning and dedication outside of the fact that we have to raise money,” said retired Navy Capt. Wilbur Jones, a local historian, author and leader in the effort.

The Kitty Hawk is scheduled to be removed from service in 2008 or 2009. After that, it likely would spend a couple of years in a reserve fleet until the Navy decides its future, Jones said.

He said he believed U.S. Navy approval to bring the ship to Wilmington would be one of the group’s lesser concerns. The city already has the battleship, and the Kitty Hawk is named after the Outer Banks locale near where the Wright brothers made their first successful flight, making North Carolina a fitting home, Jones said.“We are the obvious recipient if the Navy is going to give it away,” he said.

Group members said the Kitty Hawk is slated to be decommissioned on the West Coast. Since it’s too big to go through the Panama Canal, it would have to go around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America and up the East Coast from the south – a long, expensive journey.

Where it would go once here hasn’t been determined.

The Kitty Hawk is several hundred feet longer and about two-and-a-half times as wide as the Battleship North Carolina.It is also too tall to make it under the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, so placing it next to the battleship on Eagles Island likely wouldn’t be possible.

Jones and Willetts have floated the idea that an inlet of some sort could be dug off the Cape Fear River south of the Cape Fear bridge where the two ships could rest side by side.

“If we put it south of the State Port, we’d have to dredge and build piers, that’s for sure,” Jones said.

Some time after 2010, the battleship is slated to be towed from Wilmington to Norfolk, Va., for hull restoration. The underwater portion of the hull hasn’t been repaired or preserved since 1953, according to the battleship’s Web site, and the ship must be dry docked to do so. Norfolk is the nearest location that can be done.

Jones said its return after several months of dry-docking would be a good time to move the battleship to a new location – perhaps next to the Kitty Hawk.

Karen Fox, director of communications for the N.C. State Ports Authority, also attended the meeting. She said she brought a map of the Cape Fear River for discussion of potential sites and to look at the width and depth of the river, as well as other characteristics.

“I think it’s something that has to be examined,” she said of the Kitty Hawk idea.

The potential cost is unknown. But acquiring the ship, moving it to Wilmington, purchasing land to move it to, dredging a channel, building a dock and operating it as a museum would all require funding.

Willetts said funding sources would have to be identified.

“Is there public monies involved? Is there private monies involved? Who knows?” he said Tuesday.

Broadhurst said to make it work, statewide support – from the governor on down – would be necessary.

In the meantime, Scheu, the battleship director, said he is compiling attendance and financial information from the battleship and other large military ships run as tourist attractions throughout the country. That information would give the group an idea of how other decommissioned aircraft carriers are doing financially as tourist attractions and whether the Wilmington market could support another huge vessel.

For fiscal year 2006, the battleship projects revenue of roughly $2.2 million. In recent years, attendance has declined. In 2005, about 189,000 people visited the ship, according to numbers provided by the battleship. The ship is entirely self-sufficient and receives no annual operating money from any government.

Others at Monday’s meeting included New Hanover County Commissioner Bill Caster; retired U.S. Navy Capt. Howard Loving; Connie Majure-Rhett, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Wilmington Chamber of Commerce; and representatives of U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre’s office and the Cape Fear Council of Governments.

Attendees said they left the meeting with the understanding that they’d meet again, but no date has been set.

The Kitty Hawk was built by the New York Shipbuilding Corp. at Camden, N.J., and was commissioned at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in April 1961.

Since then, several generations of sailors and airmen have spent time on the Kitty Hawk.

They and their families alone would provide a core group of patrons, similar to how the World War II generation was instrumental in the Battleship North Carolina’s early success, Jones said.

The Kitty Hawk would give younger generations a glimpse into more modern conflicts. The carrier has been deployed during the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Iran hostage crisis and the war in Afghanistan. It also participated in air strikes against targets in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Since August 1998, its home port is Yokosuka, Japan.

After it is taken out of service, the next stop for the Kitty Hawk hasn’t been determined.

“Who knows?” Willetts said. “In seven to 10 years, maybe a dream will be fulfilled.”

Patrick Gannon: 343-2328patrick.gannon@starnewsonline.com

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